Many college students can relate to the excitement and stress that arise as the seasons shift from summer to autumn. As the Michigan weather cools down, the amount of schoolwork heats up. Many students struggle to find that perfect playlist for late-night study sessions. But have no fear — Eagle Radio has a solution! This upcoming week, Eagle Radio will be premiering a brand-new show called “ChillOut Hour." Eagle Radio is a webcast station run by and programmed for students at Eastern Michigan University.
Steve Martin, the station engineer and advisor for Eagle Radio, describes how "ChillOut Hour" came to be.
“The idea arose from the students of last year, specifically at the end of last winter semester. They thought about developing a show or an hour or two of programming of calm music that would be good for background or study music," Martin said.
The station's mission is to run programs that appeal to students, and student workers have chosen the music. One of those students is media studies and journalism major, Frank Remski.
"I curated a lot of ambient, new wave, a lot of music that is lyricless but still heavy in almost like pop elemental but really chill...a lot of it was really dreamy. The idea is that it’s music you can just play in the background," Remski said.
Many great ideas are inspired by another phenomenon. Remski expresses that the music that influenced him while curating his portion of the show's sound leaned towards dream pop.
“The two songs that helped inspire me were 'Planetary Ambience' and 'Psychopomp' by Japanese Breakfast," Remski said. "Japanese Breakfast is like an art/dream pop artist. She has these two songs on her first two albums which are just ambient music, so those were the first songs I started with. I would look up playlists like study music, ambient music, lyricless music...and I would listen to as much of the playlist as I could. As I was listening to it, I would pick out songs that would sound good for the show. It took me a long time. I would say it was the bulk of my work for Eagle Radio because I would spend two to three hours listening to tons of playlists so it could have a variety of music."
Martin describes the music selected similarly, but he also requests opinions from students outside of Eagle Radio.
“A mixture of different soft instrumental music, ambient music, lo-fi and stuff like that. Recognizing that might not be what everyone likes, we are looking for input. What do people listen to in the background while they study?” he said.
"ChillOut Hour" can be found on the Eagle Radio website https://nexus.emich.edu/eagleradio. Check there for updates of the show’s airing.
Students can send song suggestions to eagle_radio@emich.edu.
